Love or Something Like It
by DarkWingDeDe
Summary: Ginny hates her full given name and goes out of her way to protect it from everyone, even her crush of six years. When one attentive Slytherin finds out her true name, he says he won't keep quiet about it unless Ginny gives him exactly what he wants.


Ginny awoke with a start.

Her face was shiny with sweat and pale from the moon light leaking in from the crack of the curtains hanging on her bed. She just had the strangest dream that someone was in her room, looking down on her from the side of the bed. She looked and the curtains were all pulled tight except that small crack beside her head. Ginny laid there and thought a moment. She was sure that she had completely closed those curtains before falling asleep; it had been storming though and the moon wasn't out, so it could have been that she just didn't close it properly.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that her dream wasn't a dream at all. Silently swinging her legs to the side of her bed, she cracked open the curtains, dropped down to the floor and slid her house shoes on. She crept covertly around her bed to examine the rest of the room.

It was old and ornately decorated, crests and portraits littered the brick walls dating from centuries before. Crammed into the empty spaces were posters of Quidditch teams, Wizard bands, and maybe one or two of Harry Potter. _Thank Merlin that the boys weren't allowed in here_, Ginny had thought to herself on many occasions.

She could hear soft snoring coming from the other four beds, thick and heavy maroon curtains drawn tightly on all. These girls were not always her dorm mates. Previously she had been with four other in girls in the room above the one she currently presided in. At the end of last term, Professor McGonagall had called Ginny to her office to talk to her about her course schedule and erm… her recent behavior.

"Miss Weasley, do have a seat," McGonagall barked as Ginny entered the room. Ginny felt quite queasy coming to the Deputy Headmistress' office, the only other times had been when she was caught hexing Nott with a Bat Bogey Hex and another when there had been an accident in her family.

McGonagall sat there stiffly behind her desk with her glasses pushed down to the tip of her nose. Ginny had taken a seat in the chair closest to the desk. These chairs were nothing on the big, warm and comfy one's in Dumbledore's office. Hard, straight-backed and wooden these and that only made Ginny more uncomfortable. After a deafening silence, McGonagall cleared her throat and continued.

"Miss Weasley, I've been hearing some rather troubling news about you recently," said McGonagall, as she looked down her nose and shuffled some papers on her desk. "Disrupting class with out bursts, jinxing and hexing students under the teachers' nose, not completing your homework assignments…" Here McGonagall stopped going through what Ginny was sure to be her file, and directed her stern gaze upon the girl across the desk. Ginny's palms were starting to sweat; surely she wasn't going to be expelled…

"The curious thing is, Miss Weasley, that although you never turn in your out-of-class assignments, you have the top grade in every single one or your classes." McGonagall took her glasses off and laid them on her desk. When she looked back at Ginny, her face was almost soft; well, as soft as McGonagall could get. "You're bored. You're classes aren't challenging you enough and that's why, I believe, that you are acting out." There was a pause and McGonagall looked like she were heavy in deep thought. " I want to try an experiment. I've discussed this with all of your teachers and they seem to agree that under these certain circumstances that what I've arranged would be acceptable." McGonagall stood from her chair and walked around the desk to the cabinet beside the entrance to her office. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to Ginny.

"I want you, at the end of this term, to go straight to Seventh Year and skip all of your Sixth Year classes. You can look over these notes here over the summer and I believe that should catch you up on what you would miss."

Ginny thought back through that as she tip toed close by Hermione's bed. Since she was no longer a Sixth Year, she got to switch rooms to be with the older girls. This had it's advantages and it's disadvantages. She loved talking with the older girls; if only a year older, some were just that much more mature than her former roommates were and that was a relief to Ginny. But on the other hand, she hated to hear Hermione cry herself to sleep at night because of something her git of a brother, Ron, had said or done.

When Ginny got to the door she checked the lock to make sure it was still latched.

_Damn._

It was open. Someone must have went to the loo and left it unlocked. She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it ever so slightly. The doorknob sometimes let out an ungodly screech that would wake up everyone but thankfully I did not tonight.

As Ginny opened the door to the drafty stairwell, a slight breeze caught her hair and twirled it around her face. She thought that she caught the smell of freshly cut grass but shook her head. _It's 3AM and who in their right mind would be trimming the lawns at this hour?_ She was just about to turn around and go back to bed, chastising herself for being too paranoid about a stupid dream when she heard a crash from below.

_Someone's in the common room!_

Agile like a cat, Ginny sprinted down the remaining stairs and vaulted into the common room to see that a suit of armor had fallen over and a mischievous looking Crookshanks darting behind a particularly comfortable chair beside the fire place.

"Crooksy, you naughty cat, you made me think that someone was in here. Almost gave me a heart attack…"

Ginny picked up the wide eyed bushy cat and held him in her arms. "Come on, let's go to bed. No more investigating for me tonight and you can sleep with me."

Crookshanks purred and switched positions in Ginny's arms as she walked back up the stairs to her room. As Ginny laid down and made sure that her curtains were drawn tightly and with Crookshanks already asleep on her pillow, an invisible someone crept out of the Fat Lady's portrait and slinked soundlessly deeper into the castle.


End file.
